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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  March 31, 2010 9:00pm-10:00pm EDT

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they actually could have their own show. it would be like "30 rock" because they cut it up every single night. and it's just a laugh a minute. it's just -- it's funny in how they try and stretch this stuff to pretending like, the story's together. >> the only thing where the quotes are anonymous. nobody puts their names. they don't have the courage to put their names to this crap. it's hilarious. one journalistic question here, not that fox things it's bound by journalistic resumeules, if said she did interview ll cool j, that would be beyond the pale. but implying it, is that legitimate? >> the promo is the idea. but the idea that she talked to people, that they are guests in a lineup isn't just about a marketing trick here. but in particular, you know "the
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new york times" has latched on to something that was in fox nation which apparently does have something to do with fox news, it takes this whole idea of promotion to another level. so, yeah, it would be nice if the real american stories were somehow real. >> whose great idea was it by the way to launch sarah palin on tv on april fools' day? >> you know, every day is april fools' day, it's a bit like, i wish it could be christmas every day, but it is april fools' day all the time on fox news, especially for people who watch it. >> last question, is she going to use a teleprompteteleprompte >> you know, only dead fish go with the flow, and only dead fish read teleprompters. >> i'm reading a teleprompter and you did too. >> and i was pretty dead too. >> so, richard wolffe. >> i opened with a joke. >> richard wolffe, great thanks as always.
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>> thank you, keith. >> that's "countdown" this for the 2,526th day since the previous president declared mission accomplished in iraq, i'm keith olbermann, good night and good luck. now the story to impeach a state attorney general who will not sue over health care, plus the latest on drill, obama, drill. here is rachel maddow. thanks to you at home for tuning in, we have recently been covering on this show plans to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing by timothy mcveigh with an armed anti-government march on washington. turns out those plans have doubled. that story is ahead, along with our special guest, the attorney general of the state of georgia, who faces impeachment charges in his state because he said that state lawsuits against health reform are pointless and frivolous and he won't waste georgia taxpayer dollars doing it. plus the words committee and comedy are even more like each
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other, when the committee in question is the republican national committee. tonight we bring you part two of the scandal over the party of sexual moralizing approving expenditures at a scantly-clad lady bondage theme nightclub. lots to get to. but first, do you remember when there was pretty genuine bipartisan support in this country for the idea of closing down the prison at guantanamo? do you remember that? a few years ago, everyone basically agreed that guantanamo needed to be shut down. barack obama was in favor of that, john mccain was in favor of that, george w. bush was in favor of that. then barack obama became president, he adopted the idea, he tried to do it. tried to take the steps to close guantanamo, and republicans balked. they started talking about president obama wanting to let terrorists loose in your neighborhood. do you remember that? well, after that, the health
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reform battle came along. and again, republicans started arguing against something that they used to be for. in the case of health reform, that something was their idea in the first place. the idea of an individual mandate so that people have to buy health insurance. that's a republican idea. that was the republican alternative to president clinton's health reform proposal in the '90s. it was the basis of mitt romney's health reform plan in massachusetts. chuck grassley said he supported as recently as last year. then president obama adopted the idea and republicans started attacking it as unconstitutional. they turned against something they used to be for. then congress started debating the idea of creating a bipartisan deficit commission and it looked like that was going to pass. until seven republicans, who used to support that idea, changed their minds. and backed out, after president obama said he wanted to adopt it. they turned against something they used to be for.
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same thing with pay go, the pay as you go budgeting rules for congress. this was something republicans had said they were for, but after president obama adopted the idea and actually proposed it, republicans turned against it. they're against something they used to be for. well, that's the back drop against which today president obama came out and officially adopted yet another republican idea. >> today we're announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration. my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south atlantic and the gulf of mexico. >> offshore oil and gas drilling. as you probably recall, this is something that was not only a republican idea, but a rather unimagine tive republican chant throughout the presidential election campaign in 2008. during the national convention, you might recall. you would have been forgiven for thinking john mccain was running solely on a drill now platform.
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>> the right course is the one championed by ronald reagan 30 years ago and by john mccain and sarah palin today. the immediate drilling for more oil off our shores. >> he'll do it with an all of the above approach, including nuclear power, and, yes, offshore oil drilling. drill, baby, drill. drill, baby, drill. >> we will drill new wells off shore and we'll drill them now. >> let me make it very clear. drill, baby, drill, and drill now. >> now that president obama has come out in favor of that, what do you think the republican response is? naturally, the top republican in the house, john boehner, blasted the idea, saying, quote, the obama administration continues to defy the will of the american people. john boehner saying that even though the president's in favor of offshore drilling now, he's obviously not in favor of it
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enough. the number three house republican, mike pence, also blasted the decision today, saying the president's announcement today is a smokescreen. unfortunately this is yet another feeble attempt to gain votes for the president's national energy tax bill that is languishing in the senate. now, not all republicans have reacted like this today. the president appears to have bamboozled republicans a bit actually by giving them what they said they wanted. alongside the negative reactions from people like john boehner and mike pence came mildly positive statements from senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, senator lindsey graham, senator john mccain and even senator james inhofe. but man does not govern by press release alone. the real question is whether obama's big concession to republicans on policy means that he will actually get republican votes for his energy bill. the white house obviously hopes that will be the case. in leaking this news to "the new
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york times" last night, officials who did not want to be named said it was intended to, among other things, win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation. john kerry, whose job it is to get that legislation through the senate, tried to be optimistic about this today as well. his office saying, quote, in the difficult work of putting together a 60-vote coalition, senator kerry has put aside his own long-time policy objections and has been willing to explore potential energy sources off our coasts. here's a question, though. senator kerry and president obama willing to put away their long-time stated objections to this republican idea. in exchange for what? last month president obama gave into another republican energy demand, cleared the way for more nuclear power plants to be built in this country. in exchange for what? it's one thing to be willing to compromise on specific things in order to make a bill good enough to pass.
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but that only makes sense if you are getting something in exchange for making that bill less perfect. what are president obama and democrats getting here exactly? joining us now is chris hayes, the washington editor for "the nation" magazine. chris, thanks very much for joining us. really appreciate your time. >> thank you, rachel. >> so in health reform, democrats took stuff like single payer off the table before the negotiations really even began. this time around on climate change, they've given in on nuclear power, they've given in on offshore drilling. why start out making concessions in exchange for nothing from the other side? >> well, that's a fine question. i -- i'm sort of with you on this. i think the most charitable interpretation possible is that the president is a real believer in honest negotiation, and time and time again, he is going to try to will that to be the case. will those to be the facts of the matter, that he is dealing in a situation of honest, good
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faith negotiation. and so as to deal in that situation, he acts as if those conditions obtained, and he gives those good faith expectations up front and expect the magical negotiation fairy will show up and prompt the republicans to act in good faith. so far that's not been resip kated. the other interpretation that's just poor politics and malpractice. >> the magical negotiation fairy is someone i have long believed in. >> yes. >> who gave me quarters in change for my teeth as a child. we had a strange family. >> you settle the on price. >> it makes sense to be doing it this way, if it hadn't worked out so poorly in health reform. >> right. >> surely health reform passed, right? and that's the bottom line, and maybe that's all they care about. but the democrats spent months, essentially an entire year, chasing republican votes and watering down the bill and they
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ended up putting the bill together with only democratic support in the end anyway. having done a ton of work, wasted a lot of time and lost support from their base in doing so. isn't that the lesson from health reform? >> you and i think that's the lesson, and in fact i think the lesson of health care reform is go with reconciliation and use it from the beginning. this is -- cap and trade is a revenue bill. most of it can be done through reconciliation. the lesson is all of a sudden you have eight votes to play with. i will say this in their favor. in this case if you're not going to do reconciliation, it's 59-vote. and unlike health care reform, you do have lindsey gram who is a co-signer on the legislation currently. that is the big difference. there was never any republican. i don't know if lindsey graham is going to be voting for this thing, but there was never republican similarly headlining health care reform. so they can make a plausible case there's more of an area for bipartisan cooperation here. >> bipartisan cooperation. talk about a magical fairy,
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bipartisan cooperation here. republican response to this today was all over the map. john boehner slamming president obama for defying the will of the people, those moderately positive statements from mcconnell, graham and from john mccain. do you think that the strategy makes sense at all if republicans ultimately don't vote for this? if this doesn't produce a lindsey graham vote? is there some broader way in which this is the way the president wants to look to the american people, and he wants to make republicans look unreasonable. >> right. so the other interpretation is exactly that, right? politically the idea is you're constantly extending an olive branch and you're constantly getting slapped in the face. you do that enough, the american people realize who is the one operating in good faith, who is the one operating in bad faith. that might be good for the president's approval ratings, but it produces bad legislation. and more insidiously, it moves the center of debate to the right. we've seen this time and time again.
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if you step to the right and they step to the right, the center moves to the right. so all of a sudden, like guantanamo, where things particularly in the national security state, centerist ideas like we shouldn't torture or we should close guantanamo, in moving toward them you shift parameters of the conversation over. we ended up with a center-right bill, romney care essentially for the whole united states. you worry that's going to be the end result of this sort of ideological feint here with climate change. >> i think that fits with the dynamic of the country, scooting to the right, even with democrats in charge, is that this really was the president -- the administration giving the democrat party's base the back of the hand today. they not only didn't fight for what environmentalists would have wanted him to fight for, the administration gave it up for nothing. do they not care what the base thinks? do they see political advantage
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actively in messing with the base like this? >> this is known as punch the hippy strategy. it's always applauded here in washington, because there's this bizarre kind of -- i don't know what it is about this town, they hate the left, they hate liberals, progressives. if you're bashing them, you must be doing something right. there are ten democratic senators along that coastline that got opened up for drilling today and they're not happy campers. at the end of the day, rahm emanuel and the white house's calculation is, you'll like it. it's hard to think they're wrong after the health care battle. at the end of the day, every progressive member of the house, progressive caucus, voted for that bill, even though they signed a letter in the beginning seeing they wouldn't vote without a public option. it doesn't matter what we give away, at the end of the process they'll be there to vote for us. coming off health care, it's hard to think they're making the wrong calculation. >> what we ended up with, two terms of the clinton
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administration, which is that bill clinton was probably the best republican president the country ever had, if you look at the policies he passed. chris hayes, thank you very much for your time tonight. >> happy birthday. >> oh, thank you, cheers. we'll just say they're talking about "countdown." it's "countdown's" birthday. right. so barack obama offshore drilling enthusiast all of a sudden. how did that really happen? as chris was just alluding to, how did it shift so far to the right, that ending a decade's long ban on offshore drilling is now being called a centerist position. sometimes when you peek behind the curtain there's a multi still fair back there framing the scene. turns out that's true here. that's next. please stay with us. ♪ well, look who's here. it's ellen. hey, mayor white. how you doing? great. come on in. would you like to see our new police department? yeah, all right. this way. and here it is.
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memorialize the worst act of domestic terrorism in our nation's history than to use the anniversary of that attack to organize an armed march on washington. but that is the plan now of two different groups. that story's coming up. please stay with us. their time dreaming up ways tdd# 1-800-345-2550 to give us more for our money. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i guess i'd just like to see a little more give tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and a little less take, you know? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 if it was up to me, they'd spend a lot more time tdd# 1-800-345-2550 worrying about my bottom line. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 (announcer) at charles schwab, investors rule. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 are you ready to rule?
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koch industries, it's k-o-c-h. as you can see there, but it's pronounced koch. they're involved in different parts of the oil industry, petroleum refining, chemicals,
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crude oil supply wholesale marketing of fuels, base oils, petrochemicals, asphalt. who else are they involved in? they spent nearly $25 million funding organizations that are trying to convince you that the environment's fine. that the data that shows the world keeps getting hotter, that's just mumbo jumbo. don't pay any attention to that. one of the biggest recipients of koch century's ben nif sense has been americans for prosperity foundation. they got over $5 million from koch foundations between 2005 and 2008. it's a reminder, because americans for prosperity may be family to you. it may be a name you've heard because they organized a lot of the anti-health reform stuff. they were the big bloody hand
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print, hands off our health care stuff. remember? when you went to the americans for prosperity website, lo and behold it wasn't all about health care. it was this awkward thing i could never put my finger on during that whole -- the whole fight over health reform and all the things they were organizing. when you went to their website at that time, would you find the website, despite all the things they were doing in public, was still totally dominated by prooil, global warming is bunk messaging. everything from praising opposition to cap and trade policies, to be afraid, be afraid, hyperventilating about an environmental protection agency, global warming power grab. they've been promoting something they call a regulation reality tour. and, of course, their hot air tour, a nationwide gimmick launched in 2008, complete with a hot air balloon, by which they preached against the evils of cap and trade.
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americans for prosperity bills itself as an organization of grassroots leaders, they say, who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels. but, it's an organization founded by the executive vice president of koch industries, david koch, who is also the 19th richest man in the world. and the ninth richest man in america. which means he is a very, very specific kind of grassroots leader. over three years, koch industries gave over $5 million to a fake grassroots organizations that one of its owners founded. or at least to foster the appearance of popular sentiment against doing anything about global warming. it should be noted that in 2008 koch centuries spent more than exxon, more than chevron, on campaign contributions, over
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$1.8 million. 88% of it, to republicans. and koch centuries did not stop with president obama's election. so far this current campaign cycle, employees, family members and those affiliated with koch centuries have offered $900,000, including to mike pence's committee, to john boehner's action committee and campaign committee, and $15,000 to minority whip eric cantor's committees, all of whom, you might notice, reacted to president obama's prodrilling announcement today by saying the president is still not prodrilling enough. joining us now is james hogan, co-founder of desmog.com. the desmog blog reported on research by green peace which traced koch, also the author of "climate coverup, the crusade to
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deny global warming," also president of james hoggan and associates. mr. hoggan, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. >> how much influence does koch centuries really have in the debate over climate change legislation in general and drilling specifically? >> well, back to 1997, 50 -- close to $50 million came from koch foundation, the koch foundation to 40 different organizations that are part of a network that we call an echo chamber of climate change denial. >> so over 13 years they spent $50 million. >> $50 million. >> trying to convince people that climate change isn't real. >> that's right, through these different organizations. the fact that there's 40 of them creates this unique situation where people hear this message about, you know, doubt about climate science from so many different organizations, that it
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becomes believable. and people in my business and the public relations business have known this for a long time, back to the days of philip morris, which is actually where some of these organizations and the techniques that they use began in the early '90s. philip morris started a group called the advancement of sound science coalition. and it was very, very carefully thought out public relations tactics that were used to shift the issues around tobacco off of health issue and on to sound science issues. and philip morris knew they couldn't do it by themselves, so they invited people like -- organizations like exxon and other fossil fuel companies to join them. and they -- it basically became the beginning of a campaign that a lot of these 40 different organizations that i was talking about earlier drew on to -- then
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it was tobacco, today it's -- it's greenhouse gases. >> but you're saying it's the same tactic in two ways, you use different organizations so you can't dismiss the one centu industry-funded group, trying to shoot down what everyone else thinks is true. but it's also taking on not only the policy issues, but attacking the science saying there's no real problem here, trying to make that a money issue. >> that's right. it undermines, it poisons public conversations. and it undermines public confidence in science, and it makes it difficult for even well-intended political leaders to actually do the right thing on these issues. and the trick in public relations is always repetition. you look for those projects where you can actually tell people something ten times, so they actually remember what you're talking about and there's more chance they're actually going to believe you. when you pour $50 million into 40 different organizations like
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this and koch centuries isn't the only funder. exxon and a number of other groups and companies are funding these -- these 40 climate change denier outfits, that is an incredibly powerful influence over public opinion. >> and that makes it an incredibly powerful influence over politics. are you confident there will be energy legislation this year? >> i am, but you know what? i think it's all going to come down to this, that people need to start to demand that political leaders and journalists start to ask these climate -- these so-called climate change skeptics some basic questions about who's funding them, and what their qualifications are. whether or not they're actually even climate scientists, or they're doing climate science. we've been looking at this for four years. it is really difficult to find a legitimate climate scientist who doesn't think that climate change is a problem. >> james hoggan, co-founder of
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desmog.com, author of "climate coverup, the crusade to deny global warming," thanks for helping us with this. good to meet you. >> good to meet you. there's an impeachment threat against the attorney general of georgia. he says it would be fruitless to spend georgia taxpayers 'money suing the government over health reform. his name is ther bert baker. switch to allstate, and your new agent will... help tell your old insurance company goodbye. saving you that uncomfortable breakup moment. and serious cash. drivers who switched saved an average of $396 a year. $473 if they dumped geico. breaking up is easy to do. ♪ remember when that's allstate's stand. are you in good hands? ♪
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we're going to continue to fight to repeal this thing. >> on january 3, we'll start working for repeal, and we'll do it with all of you. >> we need to repeal this. >> you know that's actually not going to happen. if you hate health reform and someone asks you for money because they say they're going to repeal health reform, that person is ripping you off. they really can't repeal it. i mean, some republicans are even admitting that now. >> what you have to do is be politically honest. if the republicans win a majority in the house and senate next year, they will not be able to repeal the bill, the president would veto it. >> we should replace it with solutions that would work. obviously the president will not sign a repeal bill that the congress passes, so that's more of a symbol. >> sure, that's more of a symbol. republican senator bob corker of tennessee got even more blunt about it today, telling an
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audience at vendanderbilt university, quote, that's not going to happen, okay? okay. despite the impossibility problem that they're running up against with the we'll repeal it fundraising drive, some other opponents of health reform are trying out another futile, purely symbolic political stunt in order to dramatize how much they hate health reform. they want to sue the government to try to get health reform overturned. now, no one seriously thinks these lawsuits have any chance of success. for example, when the university of washington tried last night to host a debate between legal experts on whether or not health reform is constitutional, they couldn't find anyone to take the, it's unconstitutional side. even legal experts who didn't like health reform conceded that the lawsuits against it are pointless. because the lawsuits are widely believed to be legally pointless, the state attorneys general who are bringing these suits are feeling pressure about
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how much taxpayers' money they're willing to spend on something that has no point. that's just a political stunt. for example, virginia's new asounding attorney general, released a statement saying that the lawsuit he was bringing to overturn health care was only expected to cost virginia taxpayers a total of $350. this is amazing. listen to this. quote, attorney general kenneth t.cuccinelli released the cost of the lawsuit his office launched against the federal file health care reform act. the court filing fee for the case was $350 there has been no cost above this amount as the litigation is being handled entirely by the attorney general's staff. wait a minute. the attorney general and his staff work for free? they're doing this one pro bono
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with their own office supplies, sitting in their cars at the parking lot, not while they're at work, having their salaries and expenses paid for by the good taxpayers of the state of virginia? amazing. absolutely amazing. even more amazing, though, is what's happening in the great state of georgia. georgia's republican governor sonny purdue wanted very badly to get in on the frivolous action, but his attorney general, thurbert baker refused, telling the governor in a letter, quote, considering the state's severe budgetary crisis with education and law enforcement being cut deeply, i cannot justify a decision to initiate expensive and time consuming litigation that i believe has no legal merit. in short, this litigation is likely to fail and will consume significant amounts of taxpayers' hard earned money in the process. georgia republicans, however, are not about to let themselves be deprived of their pointless symbolic tool of opposition to
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health reform. republicans in the state legislator in georgia drafted legislation to try to force the attorney general to file that lawsuit that he said was bound to fail and waste money. that bill failed twice. republican governor sonny purdue wasn't giving up on this pointless exercise either. he announce the last week that since the real attorney general in his state refused to sue the government over health reform, he intended to appoint a special attorney general just to file that lawsuit. but now it looks like republicans in the state house have one-upped even that move by georgia's governor. a legislator has introduced a resolution to impeach georgia's attorney general. to be clear, they want to impeach thurbert baker because he says he doesn't want to waste taxpayers' money on a frivleous lawsuit with no grounds for success. joining us for the int are view is the attorney general of georgia, mr. thurbert baker.
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mr. baker is also running for the democratic nomination of governor in his state. mr. attorney general thank you very much for coming on the show. >> glad to be here. thank you. >> the move on republicans to impeach you seems fairly symbolic. there are just a few days left in the legislative session. but even if it is just symbolic, what's your reaction to this? >> very surprising. you know, i've been the attorney general in this state for 13 years. i would have never thought that there would be an effort in the legislator of this state to impeach the sitting attorney general for doing his job. and, oh, by the way, for telling the truth. it makes no sense to me. at a time when we've got huge budget crisis here in georgia, when we're laying off teachers, when we're cutting back on school days, when we've got huge transportation and water issues, we can't find jobs, we've got a huge economy problem, we're spending time in these last few legislative days trying to figure out how to impeach the
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attorney general for saying that there is no basis to file this lawsuit. >> can you tell us briefly why you think there's no basis to file this lawsuit? why you decided that this wasn't worth your time? >> our governor asked me to take a look at the question and to file a lawsuit on behalf of georgia. i took a look at the constitution of the united states, i took a look at applicable law, i looked at all the claims being raised around the country. i could find absolutely no basis to file a lawsuit. we took a look at the commerce clause. commerce, the legislator has a broad expansive power when we talk about the commerce clause. there's been a lot of discussion about the government taxing and spending for this effort. listen. that question has been settled since 1937 in this country. congress absolutely has the power to do it. now, i understand that there is a lot of policy debate across this nation. i understand there are a lot of budgetary issues involved. we have those same issues here
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in georgia. but we should not confuse that with the right of the united states congress to enact the measure that it did. that was my answer to the governor. i don't think we have a basis for it, and if we're going to go down that road, in my opinion at least, we're going to be spending hard-earned taxpayer dollars in a time of budget crisis in this state. i couldn't justify doing it. >> let me ask you about an argument that i will admit to having just made fun of, the argument of virginia attorney general, he's claiming his lawsuit against the federal government to overturn health care will only cost $350. because that's what the filing fee is. to me, as you could tell in my introduction, i find that ridiculous. but as an attorney general of a state, does that argument from him make any sense to you? >> we filed a lot of lawsuits in my office. we've defended a lot of lawsuits in my office. it's impossible to have a lawsuit where there are no inherent costs. every time you are pulling employees away from their
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appointed duties to file a lawsuit, there's going to be cost. lawyers don't work for free. not even lawyers who work in house. so i'm not aware of any way that a lawsuit can be filed, even if we do it in house, where it doesn't cost the taxpayer some money. we could have our lawyers off engaged in other areas that are going to be critical to the budget of this state, to talk about teachers and education. any of those areas where we could have our lawyers applied would be a better use of the employees and the staff. but i'm not aware of any way that you can do this without there being some inherent cost. >> me, neither, and i'm not a lawyer. mr. baker, let me also ask you about something that broke today that was new in this whole debate, that's that the attorney general of the state of oregon announced they will not sue the federal government over health reform, but that, rather, they will proactively defend the health bill in court. i wonder, if given your stance, if the oregon officials have reached out to you, if you would
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even consider joining their efforts to defend the bill. >> well, the oregon attorney general has not reached out to me. but i can almost understand what's going on. that governor and that attorney general looked at the same constitution that i looked at. they came away with the same conclusion. that, given the broad expansive powers of the federal government and its ability to enact laws, especially in this area, areas that impact interstate and intrastate commerce, that they came away with the same idea and the conclusion that i did. that there is no basis for moving in this direction. you know, so now they're going to move forward and try and assist the federal government in defending against these lawsuits. they must have came to the same conclusion that i did. >> mr. thurbert baker, the attorney general for the state of georgia for the past 13 years now, running for the democratic nomination for governor in georgia, thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. glad to be here with you. okay.
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in the wake of the revelation that the republican national committee spent almost $2,000 at a bondage-themed nightclub in west hollywood, "u.s. news and world report" posts a reminder today that the head of the congressional campaign committee had a sexy time fund-raiser of his own. 2007 before pete sessions of texas held his leadership position in the republican party at the national republican campaign committee, in 2007, in trying to earn a few bucks for his own campaign fund, pete's pack, mr. sessions held a fund-raiser here at ivan cane's 40 deuce, a burlesque club in las vegas.
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he spend more than $5,000 there. which i guess means in recent years the republican party has been way more libertarian in their fundraising issues than they have been in their policy positions, which is sort of comforting and funny of. speaking of, i have a correction to make, slightly embarrassing, about our earlier coverage of that club where the rnc spent two grand of its money. it is a club called voyeur where ladies wear very little clothing. we showed you this logo, which made me uncomfortable. i'm sorry. it's just the way i am. the nice people at voyeur in san diego contacted us to say that when we were showing that logo, what we were actually showing was the logo for their voyeur club in san diego, where the ladies wear very little clothing, not the west hollywood club, where the ladies wear very
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little clothing, which is where the rnc has been enjoying. what we should have shown you is this. a slightly different logo, which is still about a story that makes me stuter and fidget for which i'm sorry. it was a fund-raiser for a group of republicans under the age of 45 that the party calls the young eagles. they are young to the extent that they are under the age of 45. the young eagles director is named alison myers. she's so far the only person at the rnc to be punished for this scandal. she was fired this week. chairman michael steele, he whose desk is where the buck is supposedly going to stop, michael steele is still gainfully employed. so the work of the young eagles and their entire calendar of fundraising events is now in jeopardy. the rnc canceled all young eagle
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events until notice. in north carolina something called the u.s. training center. u.s. training center is in fact part of the security contractor company formerly known as blackwater. blackwater now goes by the name, we like to pronounce she. blackwater, she, is probably most famous for the legal battle stemming from an incident in baghdad in which employees gunned down 17 civilians. there were reports we aired that one had been planned. blackwater said the idea is back on and now the republican party post strip club gate is canceling the fund-raiser once again. which is too bad. gs the better. - 12 percent grass. - i like nail polish. - easy on the grass please. - chocolate.
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let me implore you to keep the torch of freedom burning bright, tell you god bless the republic, death to the new world order. we shall prevail. >> that was a member of a group called the ohio valley freedom fighters speaking at a rally over the weekend in kentucky.
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400 people with guns gathered on the state capitol grounds to hear him and other speakers, visibly packing heat. a similar scene in helena, montana. these two events are part of a national campaign to "galvanize the courage and resolve of americans to petition our elected officials against establishing anti-gun legislation and remind america the second amendment is necessary to maintain our right to self-defense. that message coming from the second amendment march, a group organizing open carry events all around the country, describing these events to precursors of their big event which is a march on washington, d.c. on april 19th. it is the anniversary of the first shots being fired in the revolutionary war. the significance has changed because april 19th is the anniversary of the oklahoma city
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bombing that killed 160 american in the alfred p. murrah building. the terrorist behind that building said he picked that date to attack the federal building because it was the branch davidian fire at waco, an incident that convinced him he needed to wage violent war on the united states of america starting with a violent attack on a federal building. you may be experiencing a sense of deja vu, hey, wait, haven't you been reporting on this armed march on washington since last week. the answer is no. there is another march scheduled for the same day in roughly the same place. two marchs on washington on the oklahoma city anniversary for people with guns the restore the constitution open carry rally, one of three confirmed speakers is this guy, the ex-alabama militia man imploring people to
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throw bricks through the windows of democratic party offices. in virginia organizers believe it is legal to carry at that event. it is not legal to carry guns in washington, d.c. washington, d.c. is the point of this whole anti-government enterprise so rally goers will be bussed to this sliver of land on the virginia side of the potomac river. they say they are getting as cloe as they can to the national mall in d.c. while still packing heat. we think the armed marchers in virginia may be able to catch a glimpse of the other gun lovers rally happening over here as you can see on the map on the grounds of the washington monument. that is being called a march. the participants on the d.c. side are marching in place. they are not going anywhere. theoretically they are not supposed to have their guns with them. as we confront the fact the anniversary the day timothy mcveigh killed 160 americans was
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picked by two anti-government gun rallies in washington there is a certain disconnect between what these organizers describe as peaceful motives and tactics to try to attract their audience. listen how the better organized of the marchs, the one in d.c., is describing its aims in their radio ad. >> think back 18 months and answer these questions. did uh you ever think the government would run general motors, control the private banking system, that government debt would be measured in the trillions. does that make you wonder about 2010? do you feel uneasy about your unalienable right to keep and bear arms. the president congress and administration want to further limit your gun rights. don't let them do it. >> the government is looming before us like a tidal wave threatening to wash away our
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freedom. they are defending the constitution from this government. you might be forgiven for thinking this may be fringy. republican brown represents georgia's tenth district. they tried to get famous rock star and gun lover ted nugent, they have said they can't afford to pay for ted nugent. no ted nugent, but a member of congress will be there.
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